Shifting 'war' on terrorism

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, August 13, 2002

IN THE "WAR" on terrorism launched by our nation's leaders after the Sept.

11 attacks, strategies are understandably subject to change because of the elusiveness and uncertain intentions of the enemy. A New York Times report on some current thinking in the Pentagon, nevertheless, should arouse concern that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld might be trying too hard to find new roles for the military in shadowy corners of the conflict.

He and senior officers, according to this account, are exploring ways of using Special Operations units for long-term covert campaigns against terrorist outposts in countries not involved in the open war against al Qaeda. In some cases, this would be done without knowledge of the host governments.

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Do such efforts by highly trained commandos to hunt down far-flung al Qaeda operatives sound like a clandestine activity of the CIA? Rumsfeld may want to seize some of that agency's turf.

He is said to have been upset upon finding, when our armed forces moved into Afghanistan to battle al Qaeda and its Taliban backers, that the CIA was already on the scene lining up and paying anti-Taliban warlords to support the American war.

Now the U.S. military, reacting to the experience in Afghanistan, seems to desire a greater role in intelligence and subterranean "direct action" against terrorists scattered in other countries.

But even assuming the division of duties between the Pentagon and the CIA can be worked out to permit secret military operations in unnamed countries where al Qaeda leaders are lurking, Rumsfeld could still face complications in securing open-ended congressional acquiescence.

Though the war powers resolution adopted a few days after Sept. 11 gave President Bush broad authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to fight the terrorists and their helpers, it invokes the Vietnam-spawned War Powers Act. That calls on the president to report regularly on such military efforts. He is supposed to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops in a hostile areas, and withdraw troops if Congress does not approve of a mission or declare war within 60 days.

Congresses and presidents typically clash over war-making powers. Constitutional purists uphold Congress' exclusive right to declare war, but presidents repeatedly wage undeclared wars. (The last declared war ended in 1945 -- before Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf.)

Rumsfeld and his Pentagon associates, with Bush on board, could multiply these wrangles between legislative and executive waging a series of undeclared,

The terrorists should be brought to account. But our Constitution should not be made one of the casualties.

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